Gossamer Wings and Hell Itself
by Hoprabbit
Summary: EdxWin. Future fic. Ed's been in a coma for two years, and Winry attempts to cope every day, hoping he won't succumb and give his Gossamer Wings up for Hell Itself. T for language. Moderate angst.....To me. ONESHOT.


"You know, Ed, I'm getting tired of waiting." Winry Elric muttered to her unconscious husband of five years. "Allie wont stop talking about 'when Daddy wakes up'. You're awful, you know that?" She threw her blouse on his head, picking it up and mumbling a regretful 'Sorry'.

They knew the possibilities. After Ed 'realized he was walking bad luck', he'd gone into a suicidal depression. Winry bit her lip, a tear streaming down her face and into her thin-lipped mouth. It was as salty and bitter as the hatred she had for herself. She could remember the day..... Back when they were happy.

* * *

FLASHBACK.  
MR. AND MRS. EDWARD ELRIC: 25 MARRIED: 4 YEARS. ONE CHILD, 4 YEARS OLD. ALLIE.

"Alphonse, Winry and Allie." Winry read aloud, sobbing. Her husband had not been in bed that morning. His automail arm was sitting on the bed in his place, wrapped up in tear stained messy sheets. "I want you three to know that I love you. More than anything in this world. But th-there's some....th-thing I can't handle any longer." She wiped her face, crying profusely. The letter was beginning to get wet. She could see the dated section had been erased several times, dating back all the way to before Allie had been born. "I feel I am walking bad luck. Whoever I'm around can't escape it. You couldn't even get Al's body back wi.....wi.....without me being away from everyone, I had to leave for Xing before Mustang could become Fuhrer. So, in order to escape causing other misfortune and....p...pain, I've decided to depart for Hell...G....G....Goodbye, and remember that I do love you. I left the arm because I don't like getting pure work dirty, but I need the leg. I would never leave you unless I knew it was better for everyone. But to st....stay would be selfish, and I must be off. I doubt we'll ever see one another again, as you'll be getting Wings of Gossamer and I'll be having Fire of Hell. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you." Winry finished the letter, her tears falling like a hard March rain.

Winry was unsure how to deal with the situation. She could sit there and cry, or yell at the letter, or go find her husband. Half an hour and a 'you fucking moron bastard' later, Winry had dropped Allie off at her grandmother Pinako's and had told her she was going to get some 'certain items'. Pinako accepted it with a smirk, which Winry winked to. As she turned around, a frown dominated her face, and Winry contemplated how Ed would have tried suicide. Alchemy was out. He had too much respect for it. He didn't have the arm to hold a gun and hated to disrespect machinery, the reason he'd left his arm. Winry smiled bitterly, but wanted to slap herself.  
He would never force someone else to do it for him, and didn't have time to escape to somewhere where war ran rampant. That left a cliff or a river. Mrs. Elric kicked her heels off behind her and took off at a full force run toward the nearby waterfront. "You idiot. How cheesy..... If you die now, you steal those freaking Gossamer Wings you're promising me...."

* * *

"Stupid bastard." Winry mumbled to Ed, picking his head up to clean off the spit he left daily. The IV bag went haywire half of the time, causing him to drool all over himself. "God Ed. Do something right......" Winry scolded him, feeling as if it were back when they were kids. She then mumbled another sorry. It didn't feel right to scold him when he was out like that.

She picked his frail body up and cradled it. Ed had lost a lot of muscle mass, and had gotten taller. She didn't have the heart to cut his hair, and kept it long, never braiding it as that would make him uncomfortable. A small smile shined on Edward's lips, as it always did when Winry held him. When she let him go, to help Allie or work on automail at her workbench, the frown or neutral line would return to his face. While it made her sad, she had to earn money. Sitting there and wasting away was not an option.

* * *

FLASHBACK.  
MR. AND MRS. EDWARD ELRIC: 25 MARRIED: 4 YEARS. ONE CHILD, 4 YEARS OLD. ALLIE.

"It's as good a place as any...." Edward mumbled, staring down the long drop at the rushing river below him. "Why do I have to be so useless.....Winry and Al will probably blame themselves..... Don't think about it Ed. Just...." He stepped off of the rock with one foot, his hair flying up in a flurry, the pit in his stomach hitting his throat and forcing his excited, beautiful golden eyes open. Falling was like an eternity, it never ended.

For four seconds, Edward Elric rushed through the air thirty-six feet to the bottom of a cliff.  
But it felt like an endless abyss, forcing his eyes shut, millions of thoughts flowing in his reasonable alchemist's brain.

He remembered things no normal person would think of. Seeing his mother the first time. How good food tasted. Al's birth. Every single one of their petty fights, the one over Winry being most vivid. Trisha Elric's dying breath. All the moments spent sparring with Izumi. Getting his ass handed to him on the island. Human Transmutation. The gate. One. All the people he'd ever met. Nina and Tucker. The rush of colors brought bile to his throat.

All of this and more flushed into his brain as his blood followed the air's push, rushing to his head. And then he made his mistake. Ed thought too much, thought far too hard about how much he loved all of his friends, his brother, his daughter....His wife...... And he bent his knees.

Rather than landing on his head in his suicidal fall, he instead turned sideways and landed half on one knee, and the other foot. This caused a recoil on the rock, and Edward Elric almost bounced, sickening noises coming from his human leg and automail duplicate. And so he lay there for an even longer eternity, thinking how much he screwed up.....He couldn't even commit suicide correctly.... But there was a strange tap-tap-tap noise, and a few female ows. He saw Winry, enveloped with Gossamer Wings, he thought a last vision before death. Then......Then it all went black.  
It's been black for two years and counting. But Ed only thinks it's a single second, a blink.  
It would be nice if it was.

* * *

After her hard day's work, Winry tucked her six-year old away in her bed at eight o'clock, and went to the bed to have her usual one-sided chat with the biggest....rather, littlest, idiot she'd ever met. "Ed. Why wont you wake up, Ed. Don't you think it hurts us. It hurt Al so much we don't know what happened to him." Winry had taken to monotoning to stop the tears she knew would come if she screamed at him. It caused so much pain, for her to give up her old ways of scolding him with a wrench and harsh words, telling him he was a midget, seeing Allie's face light up when her daddy came home from work.

"You passing out into this damned coma forced your brother to leave us. You freaking Elrics can't seem to accept us little people do love you..... Even Fuhrer Mustang cares about your condition, for more than just sending your Brigadier General ass off on a mission. You've disgraced Mr. Hughes' title, I hope you know. You must know he never wanted this for you. He knows how much of Hell you've seen, for God's sake, Ed, you must know Satan himself...." Winry took Ed's fragile blond head into her arms, sinking her face into his hair, mumbling the sweet things she used to tell him, along with the nasty insults she could spout off.

"When are you going to wake up, shrimp? I love you. I miss you. It's so unfair, how you left us.... You know Izumi cried for you? You're such a little idiot!" She screamed, clutching him closer. "Wake up, you half-pint! Little, short, tiny insect! Wake....wake up and drink your milk one last time for me, Ed.....Please...." Mrs. Elric was overcome with emotion, and it came out in her shouts and tears.

"Just get up, okay? Just.... wake up....." And with that, Winry fell asleep clinging to her Edward, the blankets curled around them like a cloud, holding her angel up, allowing her to clutch his Gossamer wings and hold like Hell to the warmth of his stubborn body.


End file.
